Long before there was a controversy surrounding the planned Park51 mosque project near Manhattan’s ground zero, the World Trade Center itself housed a mosque of sorts for Muslims at the complex.

The prayer room was located on the 17th floor of the south tower, 2 World Trade Center, the first of the two towers to collapse following the attacks by Muslim terrorists on 9/11.

The room was frequented by American-born and foreign-born Muslims as well as Muslim visitors from abroad conducting business at the Trade Center.

“It had the feel of a real mosque,” Zafar Sareshwala, a financial executive who prayed in the room while on business trips from his London office, told The New York Times.

“And the best part is that you are in the epicenter of capitalism  New York City, the World Trade Center  and you had this island of spiritualism.”

The Times observed: “Opponents of the Park51 project say the presence of a Muslim center dishonors the victims of the Islamic extremists who flew two jets into the towers. Yet not only were Muslims peacefully worshipping in the twin towers long before the attacks, but even after the 1993 bombing of one tower by a Muslim radical, Ramzi Yousef, their religious observance generated no opposition.”

Muslim workers at Windows on the World, the restaurant at the top of the north tower, used a stairwell between the 106th and 107th floors for their prayers, flattening cardboard boxes to serve as prayer mats on the concrete floor.

At least two of the restaurant’s Muslim employees were among the estimated 60 Muslims who died at ground zero on Sept. 11.

Documentary filmmaker Michael Moore claims that the “blame” for the Iraq war goes less to neoconservatives in the George W. Bush administration than to liberals  in particular the liberal media.

In an article written for The Daily Beast website, Moore states: “We invaded Iraq because most Americans  including good liberals like Al Franken, Nicholas Kristof and Bill Keller of The New York Times, David Remnick of The New Yorker, the editors of The Atlantic and The New Republic, Harvey Weinstein, Hillary Clinton, Chuck Schumer, and John Kerry  wanted to.”

The “actual blame” for the war goes to the Bush administration, Moore acknowledges, but he goes on to say: “How did they get away with it?

“They did it by getting liberal voices to support their war. They did it by creating the look of bipartisanship. And they convinced other countries' leaders like Tony Blair to get on board and make it look like it wasn't just our intelligence agencies cooking the evidence.

“But most importantly, they made this war (and its public support) happen because Bush & Co. had brilliantly conned the Times into running a bunch of phony front-page stories about how Saddam Hussein had all these ‘weapons of mass destruction.’

“The administration gleefully fed this false information not to Fox News or the Washington Times. They gave it to America's leading liberal newspaper.

“I blame the Times more for this war than Bush . . . The Times gave the Bush administration the cover they needed. They could  and did  say, ‘Hey, look, even the Times says Saddam has WMD!’”

Moore, whose controversial documentaries include “Fahrenheit 9/11” and “Capitalism: A Love Story,” says early liberal support for the war was the “key ingredient in selling it to a majority of the public.”

He also asserts that the liberal press was remiss in not covering the growing opposition to the war, and adds:

“I know it’s hard to remember, but when this war started, there was no YouTube, no Facebook, no Twitter, no way for you to bypass the media lords so you could have your own say.

Carl Paladino, who won the Republican gubernatorial primary on Tuesday, “already seems to have visions of the White House dancing somewhere in the back of his head,” The New York Times observes.

The Buffalo businessman’s campaign website states: “The last NY governor from Buffalo became president of the United States.”

The reference is to Grover Cleveland, who won two nonconsecutive terms in the late 19th century.

Paladino and Cleveland have more in common than their Buffalo origins: Both acknowledged having illegitimate children.

Paladino is helping to raise a 10-year-old daughter he fathered with an employee. As for Cleveland, he was taunted during the 1884 presidential campaign with shouts of “Ma, ma, where’s my pa?” After he won, his supporters retorted: “Gone to the White House. Ha! Ha! Ha!”

But when it comes to New York governors seeking the White House, many have called but few have been chosen. Thomas Dewey, Averell Harriman, Nelson Rockefeller, Hugh Carey, and Mario Cuomo all either tossed their hat in the ring or were considered likely candidates, and none became president. The last Empire State governor to win a presidential election: Franklin D. Roosevelt.

As it is, Paladino faces a tough challenge even to win the governor’s mansion. He’ll square off against New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo in November, and many observers predict an easy win for the Democrat.

“Why [is] the Washington Post getting involved?” the Change.org website states. “The New York Times explains that the Post Co. gets more than half of its revenue, 62 percent, from its Kaplan education business, so it’s clearly in their interest to fight regulation that could hit their profits.

“Indeed, the Post was decent enough to admit that two Kaplan campuses have engaged in deceptive recruiting practices. But that doesn’t make it right.”

Also lobbying against the regulations is the University of Phoenix, the country’s largest for-profit college, which e-mailed each member of Congress seeking help in fighting the new rules.

The Anti-Defamation League has called on Time magazine to apologize for a cover story the League asserts was predicated on the “insidious subtext” of Jews being obsessed with money.

The cover of Time’s Sept. 13 issue features a Star of David with these words inside it: “Why Israel Doesn’t Care About Peace.”

ADL National Director Abraham Foxman said the “outcry from the Jewish community and others has been overwhelming. We have received calls and e-mails from around the country expressing outrage at the implication that Israelis care more about money than a future of peace and security.”

In a letter to Managing Editor Richard Stengel, the ADL called on the magazine's editors to issue an apology to readers both for the timing of the article and its evocation of anti-Semitic stereotypes about Jews and money.

"The insidious subtext of Israeli Jews being obsessed with money echoes the age-old anti-Semitic falsehood that Jews care about money above any other interest, in this case achieving peace with the Palestinians," Foxman wrote.

"At the same time, Time ignores the very real sacrifices made by Israel and its people in the pursuit of peace and the efforts by successive Israeli governments of reconciliation.

"One can only be cynical about the timing of the article, appearing as Israelis and Palestinians engage in direct negotiations and Jews the world over pray on the High Holidays for a New Year that will bring peace."

A diplomat based at Iran’s embassy in Brussels on Tuesday said he was seeking asylum in Norway, adding his name to the list of Iranian diplomats defecting from President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s hard-line regime.

Farzad Farhangian, a press attaché, said at a press conference in Oslo, Norway, that he wanted to “take a stand in support of the Iranian people.”

He added: “During the last 30 years, I was of service to the Iranian people, but the deviation that the Iranian Republic has reached leaves me no choice.”

Farhangian was accompanied at the press conference by Mohammed Reza Heydari, who defected from his post as consul-general in Oslo in January and was granted asylum in Norway.

He said at the time he was resigning in protest against the violent crackdown on Iranians following Ahmadinejad’s disputed election victory in June 2009 and the killing of protesters in December, CNSNews reported.

Farhangian’s defection came a day after Hossein Alizadeh, deputy head of the Iranian mission in Helsinki, Finland, announced that he would seek asylum in Finland, citing Iran’s election “fraud” and the harsh response to protests.

In January, it was revealed that Abolfazi Eslami had resigned from his job at the foreign ministry in Tehran four years earlier and sought refuge in Japan.

Amir Hossein Jahanchahi, founder of the Europe-based Green Wave opposition movement, said in a statement that "other defections from diplomats abroad will follow."

CNSNews observed: “Five years after a newly installed President Ahmadinejad ordered a purge of dozens of Iranian diplomats considered too ‘liberal,’ a slow trickle of defections suggests growing unhappiness with his hard-line policies within the diplomatic corps.”

THAT Hillary Clinton expects tea party candidates to become “very sobered” if they win in November and face the challenges of public office.

Secretary of State Clinton, who is taking part in peace talks between the Israelis and Palestinians, was asked by ABC News’ Christiane Amanpour on Thursday: "Is it possible to have the president's foreign policy agenda furthered, even if a lot of tea party candidates do end up" winning?

Clinton responded: "Well, I've seen a lot of people run for office and say a lot of things and then when they have the burden of holding office and the responsibility that goes with it, I've seen them become very sobered, very quickly, about the challenges we face domestically and internationally.”

Referring to former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo, she added: "Nobody said it better than Mario Cuomo, who said, 'You campaign in poetry, and you govern in prose.' Sometimes the poetry can get kind of hot and a little over the top, but the prose brings you down to earth."

THAT Americans’ support for Israel has jumped following the resumption of Middle East peace talks, a new poll reveals.

The nonpartisan survey by Public Opinion Strategies and Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research found that 58 percent of respondents believe the United States should support Israel, up 7 percentage points from July.

Only 7 percent believe America should support the Palestinians. The rest of the respondents said the U.S. should support neither, did not know, or refused to answer.

And by a six to one margin, Americans believe Israel is more committed to reaching a peace agreement than the Palestinians, according to the poll conducted for The Israel Project.

Said pollster Stan Greenberg: “This poll showed Americans paid attention to the start of the peace talks and took note of the Israeli position.”

THAT Donald E. Wildmon, founder and Chairman Emeritus of American Family Association, received the prestigious James C. Dobson Values & Leadership Award at a gala in his honor Saturday evening in Washington.

American Family Association, founded by Wildmon in his dining room in 1977, is a pro-family advocacy organization with over 2.5 million online supporters.

The award was presented at the Values Voter Summit, and speakers included Chuck Colson, president of Prison Fellowship, and Dr. James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family.

THAT The Associated Press claims that CNN  which dropped its contract with AP in June  routinely uses the wire service’s reporting.

AP spokesman Paul Colford said: “CNN continues to make extensive use of AP’s original reporting, even though they no longer pay us for it. We are monitoring it very closely, and are considering our options.”